Today ordinary chewing gums and bubble gums generally utilize as their gum base one or a combination of two or more natural or snythetic elastomers. Styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) is a synthetic elastomer that is widely used as a gum base in chewing gums. The gum base that is selected provides the chewing gum with its masticatory properties. A chewing gum base is normally admixed with sugars or synthetic sweeteners, perfumes, flavors, plasticizers, and fillers; and then milled and formed into sticks, sheets, or pellets. Cottonseed oil is sometimes also added to give the gum softness.
When SBR is utilized as a chewing gum base it is necessary that some stabilizer be added so that the gum can be processed and provided with necessary antioxidant protection. In the absence of such a stabilizer it would be impossible to process the SBR chewing gum base into chewing gum. If an attempt to process an SBR gum base into chewing gum in the absence of a stabilizer is made there is a very substantial likelihood that the gum base will catch on fire. Normally, butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT) is added to the chewing gum SBR as a stabilizer. BHT is widely used as an antioxidant in food products and in animal feed. However, there is a growing belief that the ingestion of BHT is hazardous to human health.
Replacing BHT with "natural" stabilizers or those that are generally recognized as being safe would be highly desirable. This invention reveals an SBR stabilizer system that would generally be considered to be safe.